Sharon Shinn - Reader And Raelynx

“It’s probably even harder for Amalie than it is for a Lirren girl to break free of her protectors,” Ellynor added. “From what you’ve said, Amalie has been so carefully guarded her whole life that she might have been smothered in care. I think it’s a good sign that she is starting to test her power.”

Justin laughed. “You say that because you’re a rebel yourself.”

She smiled at him but said, “She is to be queen . Surely she needs to start developing her own instincts before she is suddenly sitting on the throne.”

“Well, but her instincts made her want to set the raelynx free!” Cammon said.

Justin shook his head. “Damn. Never saw anything like that.”

“And what did you learn then? Two things,” Ellynor reminded Cammon. “She can control it. And she heeded the words of an advisor she trusted. Both of those things ought to reassure you at least a little.”

“You mark my words,” Justin said. “One day that raelynx is going to be out. And nothing I say, or Valri says, or Cammon says, or Senneth says, will make her put it back in its pen.”

“Maybe,” Ellynor said. “But wait until that day comes before you decide whether or not she’s done a foolish thing.”

INthe morning, despite Valri’s protests, Amalie had another weapons session with Wen and Janni-in the Riders’ training yard.

“I’m perfectly happy to have her learn how to wield a knife, but let her learn inside! Where it’s safe and it’s warm !” Valri exclaimed as she and Cammon hung on the fence rails, watching.

The day was bitterly cold, though at least there was neither wind nor snow. Cammon imagined that the combatants on the field were plenty warm, though he and Valri were freezing.

He grinned. “Can’t imagine she could be safer anywhere than in a field surrounded by Riders,” he said. “Even if Halchon Gisseltess came bursting through the gates this very minute with an army at his back.”

Valri shivered. “Don’t say that.”

Cammon watched as Amalie dodged a blow from Janni and went tumbling to the ground. The princess’s cheeks were streaked with mud, and her borrowed clothes-a close-fitting vest and leather pants tucked into sturdy boots-were already filthy. Yet she had a very businesslike air about her. She had braided back her red-gold hair, pulled on the proffered gloves, and listened to the day’s instructions with calm intentness. She hadn’t done a half-bad job, either, he thought. She would have been dead only four out of the five times Janni had attacked her this morning. Pretty good record for the rawest of recruits.

“Maybe you could stand a little training, too,” he said. “Learn how to use a knife.”

Valri gave him a scornful look. “You think I don’t know how to cut a man’s throat?”

He was so surprised that he stared back at her a moment and then he burst out laughing. “I suppose you do. You’re fierce enough. And you come from fierce enough people. Do you have brothers like Ellynor’s? Do they constantly make war with other clans? All I know is that you were born in the Lirrens and you left. I don’t know what your life was like before.”

She had turned her moody gaze back to the field, where Amalie was circling Janni, her own blade upraised. “If Ellynor has told you much about her life, she has essentially described my own. Except I was wilder than Ellynor, more dissatisfied. I schemed and schemed about getting free. Running away. While I was still a child, I dreamed about declaring myself bahta-lo and walking away from the clans. It was no surprise to anyone that I did it.”

“But it seems to me,” he said softly, “that you are even more confined now than you were in the Lirrens. Tied to the king, tied to his daughter. You named yourself bahta-lo and you crossed the Lireth Mountains, but you are hardly free.”

Her smile was a little grim. “You’re right. And I knew it before I agreed to follow Pella back here. I was trading one kind of prison for another. But at least it was a prison I chose.”

He shook his head. “It still doesn’t really make sense to me. That you would choose this life. The Lirrenfolk barely even acknowledge Baryn as king. Why would you care if his daughter lived or died? Then, I mean,” he added hastily. “Now I’m sure that you love Amalie and are willing to do anything you can to protect her.”

Still watching the field, Valri nodded slowly. “Yes. I will do everything in my power to guard her. But I crossed the mountains for Pella’s sake-I had not even met Amalie at that point. I don’t know if I can explain it to you. Pella was almost a stranger to me. She looked nothing like me or anyone I knew, for she had bright gold hair and that open smile, just like Amalie’s. And yet I recognized her. She was in some way a sister. I felt that she had come to the Lirrens specifically to find me.” Valri glanced at Cammon and glanced away. “I thought the Great Mother-who counts every soul, who knows where every one of her sons and daughters lies sleeping at night-I thought she had directed Pella to me. I thought the goddess had given me this task. And so I accepted it.”

Ellynor, too, seemed to have a direct and personal relationship with that night goddess who watched over Lirrenfolk. It did not surprise Cammon nearly as much as Valri might think to hear that she followed the will of the deity. He asked, “And have you been sorry that you gave up so much to come here? Or glad?”

Valri made a sound that might almost have been a laugh, except it wasn’t. “Sorry every day. I miss them more than I thought I possibly could-my sisters, my brothers, my cousins, my-everyone. And glad every day. Convinced that my presence has saved Amalie from both grief and danger. And sorry again, as I find grief and danger creeping closer anyway, and I think I have no way of keeping them away from her.” She turned her head to survey him. “And glad again, when I think she has other friends besides me to stand at her side.”

Her words gave him a little glow, especially since the last time Valri had talked to him about Amalie she had been warning him to keep his distance. She must have recovered some of her faith in him. “What will you do, once Amalie is named queen?” he asked curiously. “We hope that will be years from now, of course! But you will be widowed then, I suppose. Will you go back to the Lirrens? Will you stay in Ghosenhall?”

“I will stay as long as she needs me. But after that-I’m not sure. I may go back. I may travel. I may leave Gillengaria altogether, who knows? But I would like to see the Lirrens again someday. I miss them, I miss-” She shrugged and closed her mouth.

He didn’t know what made him say it. Maybe there was an image in her mind, and her emotion was sharp enough that he could sense it, though normally she was so adept at cloaking her thoughts. “You could marry again.”

She gave him a swift look in which he read a sudden surge of pain. “If anyone I cared for would have me.”

He caught his breath. “Did you leave someone behind in the Lirrens?”

She hesitated and then she nodded. “We were both young, of course. I was about the age Amalie is now. But I loved him. I thought it would kill me to leave him. Yet I survived, and he survived, and now I am married to the king.”

“You’re still young,” Cammon pointed out. “If something were to happen-well-of course I don’t want anything to happen, but if it did-”

“You think he will have waited for me?”

“ I would have, if it were me,” he said.

The words hung between them for a moment, both of them surprised. He thought Valri softened toward him in that instant, lost just the tiniest edge of her diamond hardness. “Ellynor says he has not yet taken a bride,” Valri said in a low voice. “But that he does not speak of me.”